An HTML term for code that lets you link to a specific point in a page, using the "#" character. You can use them to link to a section of a page.

B

Blanking

Removing all content from a page. Newcomers often do this accidentally. On the other hand, if blanking an article is done in bad faith, it is vandalism. If blanking is done to a vandalized brand-new page, it is maintenance, and the page should be deleted by an admin.

Block

The act of removing the ability to edit from a certain user or IP address on a single community, usually done by an administrator against users or IP addresses causing vandalism.

Boilerplate text

A standard message which can be added to an article using a template.

Broken link

Also used: edit link, red link.

A link to a nonexistent page, usually colored red. List of such links can be found on Special:WantedPages.

Broken redirect

Redirect to a non-existent page. These are listed at Special:BrokenRedirects and should usually be removed or redirected.

Bureaucrat

A user who can promote and demote other users to the positions of rollback, content mod and admin, and promote to bureaucrat. Sometimes just called "crat".

C

A chat ban is a set interval of time a user is not allowed to enter a community's chat room. Chat bans can be initiated by users with appropriate user rights (most likely chat moderators and administrators/bureaucrats). Chat bans do not effect the person's ability to edit the wiki, however, a block does prevent users from entering chat.

Moving a page by taking the text of the page, and copying it into the edit window for a second page. Generally considered worse than the 'move page' option, because it causes the page and its edit history to be in different places. Cut and paste moves can be fixed by administrators.

To remove (de-link) a wikification of an article. This can be done to remove selflinks or excessive common-noun Wikification.

Diff

The difference between two versions of a page, as displayed using the Page history feature, or from recent changes. The versions to compare are encoded in the URL, so you can make a link by copying and pasting it - for instance when discussing a specific change to an article.

A redirect which leads to another redirect. Counter-intuitively, this will not bring one to the final destination, so it needs to be eliminated by linking directly to the final target page. Listed at Special:DoubleRedirects.

Dupe

Short for a duplicate article. Often used when identifying a duplicate page that needs to be merged with another.

E

Edit conflict

Two or more parties both attempt to save different edits to the same page at the same time. Usually, if this happens, you will be asked to re-do your edit into a newly modified page.

G

A guideline is a recommended best practice for doing something on a wiki, usually having to do with page creation or layout, but can be about almost anything (chat language, images, signatures, templates, etc.). It usually is less strictly enforced than a policy.

H

History

Also called: page history

All previous versions of an article, from its creation to its current state.

I

Internal link

Also used: wikilink

A link pointing to another page within the same site created (in the source editor) by using the wikitext markup double square-brackets "[[" and "]]". These links usually show up as blue if they are working, and red if they are broken. Note that they do not have the arrow symbol characteristic of an external link.

Infobox

An infobox is a standard template used on mainspace pages. Infoboxes have "fields", with each field denoting a different piece of information based on parameters set in the template. An example is for a television show, episode pages may rely on an infobox specifically for episodes, and will include information such as episode, season, and director.

A link to a different community's site on Fandom. Usually links a word or name to a page covering the topic in depth on another site. Also seen at the bottom of pages when the page is available in different languages.

IP address

An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g. computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing.

Taking the text of two pages, and combining them into a single page. Also used for the combination of two community sites.

Mirror

A website other than Fandom that uses content original to Fandom as a source for at least some of its content. This is allowed under CC-BY-SA, provided that attribution is intact.

Moderator

A user who has special rights over management of a certain type of content. The most common types are Chat Moderators (manage chat content and users), Content Moderators (manage wiki content like pages and files), and Discussions Moderators (manage mobile Discussion threads and users). See Special:ListGroupRights for the rights and types of moderators.

N

Namespace

A way to classify pages. Fandom has namespaces for the main content, pages about the project (which on many wikis will be in the main namespace), user pages (User:), special pages (Special:), MediaWiki pages (MediaWiki:) and talk pages (Talk:, Wikipedia talk:, and User talk:), and more.

"Neutral Point of View", or the agreement to report subjective opinions objectively, so as not to cause edit wars between opposing sides. As a verb, to remove biased statements or slanted phrasing. As an adjective, it indicates that an article fits this idea of neutrality. Commonly used at Wikipedia, where NPOV is a primary policy, it is also a local policy on many Fandom communities.

A null edit occurs when an editor opens the edit window of a document then re-saves the page without having made any text changes. This is sometimes done as a lazy way to purge – such as to update the functioning of templates (which require articles containing them to be edited for any changes to take effect). Moreover, a null edit can more quickly populate the page into a new category. The term also applies to making a slight, non-substantive change (e.g. removing an unneeded blank line or adding one) to get the article history to register a change, for the purpose of leaving an edit summary that responds to a previous one.

O

P

Piped link

A link where the displayed text is not the name of the target article. Such links are created (in the source editor) using the pipe character "|" e.g. [[Target article|Displayed text]]. The pipe trick is a software feature that generates the displayed text for you in certain circumstances.

A policy is a wiki rule, usually having to do with page creation or layout, but can be about almost anything (images, signatures, templates, etc.). It is usually strictly enforced and tends to have stronger consequences than not following a guideline.

POV

Point of view. Often used negatively as an adjective to indicate bias, as in "That reply was POV, not neutral".

The project namespace is a namespace dedicated to providing information about a wiki. At Wikipedia, this is used to separate policies from encyclopedia articles. It is less commonly used at Fandom.

Protected page

A page that cannot be edited by all users. A page can be protected against anonymous users and new accounts, or against all users except admins. Often this is done to protect against frequent vandalism or to cool down an edit war.

References are external sources used to confirm information. A link can become a reference by placing the <ref></ref> tags around it. A list of references can be added to the page by adding <references/> under the appropriate header.

S

Sandbox

A sandbox is a page that users may edit however they want. This is for users to experiment and gain familiarity with Wiki markup.

Section editing

Using the 'edit' links to the right of the page, one can get an edit window containing only part of the page, making it easier to find the exact spot where one wants to edit. Javascript is needed for section editing. You can turn section editing off in your preferences under the "Enable section editing via [edit] links" option.

Self-link

A Wikilink contained in an article that points the reader to that same article, e.g. linking Help:Contents in the article "Help:Contents". Such links are automatically displayed as strongly emphasized text rather than links, but the more complex case of a link which redirects to the same article is not, and should be de-wikified.

Skin

The site's overall layout and appearance. All wikis display in the Oasis skin by default. Customizations to the colors and other details can be made in a personal CSS file, or, as an admin, by using Special:ThemeDesigner.

A very short article or page that essentially points the reader in the direction of another page. Used in cases where a normal redirect is inappropriate for various reasons (e.g. it is a cross-wiki redirect).

An article usually consisting of one short paragraph or less. It can also be an article that may contain a certain amount of information, but one or more sections are incomplete. In short terms, a stub is an incomplete article. A {{stub}} template is often added to mark intended content and invite others to add to the page.

Sub-stub

A very short stub. For example, an article that is no more than a simple definition ("An airplane is a type of winged flying vehicle").

Subpage

A page connected to a parent page. You can only create subpages in certain namespaces. For example, a parent page can have the name "Parent article", and a subpage can have the name "Child page" with a slash (/) before it, so the subpage would actually be called "Parent article/Child page".

T

Talk page

A page reserved for discussion. Many pages within Fandom (except talk pages themselves) have talk pages attached to them, though some communities use article comments on article pages, which replace talk pages.

A way of automatically including the contents of one page within another page, used for boilerplate text, navigational aids, etc. Templates on Community Central can be used on any other Fandom wiki (see Help:Shared templates for details).

A test case page is one that is a subpage of a template where the parameters of the template are tested. It is sometimes used in conjunction with a sandbox. The common subpage name for these pages is /testcases.

A misspelling of "typo". Used as an edit summary when ironically correcting typos.

U

Un-wiki

Going against the basic concept of a wiki. Usually saying that something is un-wiki means that it makes editing more difficult or impossible. For example, an administrator or two would create a large amount of rules for editing, or just protect most, if not all pages to prevent edits from most users.

User

A contributor to a Fandom project.

Userboxes

A small colored box which allows users to add small messages on their user page. Most people use this to share facts about themselves, such as their interests, hobbies, likes, and dislikes. Some userboxes can also have images.

For more information about userboxes, check out the userbox template on Templates Wiki.

User page

A personal page for editors at Fandom. Most people use their pages to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used to communicate with other users via the Message Wall or user talk page.

Deliberate defacement of pages on a community with the intent to be disruptive. This can be by deleting text or publishing nonsense, bad language, etc. The term is often incorrectly used to discredit the views of an opponent in edit wars.

VisualEditor

An editor feature that provides an interface that reflects how articles will look when published.

Code like HTML, but simplified and more convenient, for example '''bold''' instead of <b>bold</b>. It is the source code stored in the database and shown in the editor in source mode. Searching by the MediaWiki software is done in the wikitext, as opposed to searching by Google, which is done in the visible text. The size of a page is the size of the wikitext.